The Four Friends (For Aesop’s Fables)

Reference URL

This woodcut is an illustration for the story ‘The Four Friends,’ which is the tale of four animals – a mouse, a deer, a tortoise and a crow. Despite being very different, they united to help each other defeat their biggest common enemy (man) who wished to hunt them. The story is thought to have originated in South Asia but was also told as part of Aesop’s Fables. The illustration shows McKenzie’s skill as a printmaker. She was praised for her sculptural handling of her subjects, her economy and precision.

Print

An image pressed or stamped onto paper or fabric. This encompasses a wide variety of techniques, usually produced in multiples, although one-off prints, known as monoprints, are also included. The term is also applied to photographic images.

Woodcut

A print made from an image carved into a block of wood cut along the grain. Blank areas are cut away leaving an image in relief from which a print is made.

Print, Woodcut

Details

Acc. No.GMA 4394

MediumWood engraving on paper [24/50]

Size10.00 x 10.00 cm; paper: 22.00 x 14.80 cm

CreditWinifred McKenzie Bequest 2001

Alison McKenzie (Scottish, 1907 - 1982)

Alison McKenzie was born in Bombay and grew up in Scotland. She studied Design and Textiles at Glasgow School of Art before her family moved to London in 1930, where Alison and her sister Winifred studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art. Both sisters exhibited their work regularly, and Alison was commissioned to design several posters for the London North Eastern Railway to advertise the Yorkshire Dales and Norfolk Broads. She later taught at Dundee College of Art from 1946-58. In addition to wood engravings, Alison produced still lifes in watercolour as well as some works in oils and gouache. Influenced by late Cubist painting, her work is characterised by a muted palette of greens, greys and ochres.